


Chiaroscuro

by MidwinterMonday



Series: Songs of Innocence [3]
Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Memories, Courage, Family, Gen, Innocence, Parental Love, Upbringing, childhood lessons, children & parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5264804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwinterMonday/pseuds/MidwinterMonday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(June 1999)<br/>A day like any other in Jace's young life, until his father's summons.  What happens then — well, even the imperturbable Valentine wasn't quite prepared for this.  A lesson in love, faith and courage, which neither father nor son will ever forget. The framing story takes place in New York, shortly after the end of City of Glass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

> .  
>  A Note about Canon:  
> My fan fic takes the original _City of Bones_ trilogy as canon. Try to read this as if you haven't read the later books, ignoring the ways it may contradict (or unwittingly echo) things Clare has established since City of Glass - because that's how it was written. For more about why I haven't read the second trilogy, see my profile.
> 
> Disclaimer: characters, story and universe all belong to the incomparable Cassandra Clare. Readers of _City of Ashes_ will recognize the dialogue quoted from there. Apologies also to Dorothy Dunnett, from whom I've stolen a couple of excellent lines, and to Dickens for some unforgettable imagery.
> 
> The details in what follows are obviously speculation. But I've always been convinced that something like this must have happened... Let me know what you think. 
> 
>    
>  _This story starts a little slowly: if you're the impatient type, feel free to scroll down till you find Valentine! But it seemed important to give the reader a fuller glimpse of Jace's boyhood in Idris: the sunny idyll he looks back on — remember that little boy squirming with laughter in a bath of spaghetti! — as well as the harsh upbringing which has made him who he is. It's easy to forget, reading Clare's story, that Clary's picture of Jace's grim and lightless childhood with Valentine can't be the whole truth. Not for Jace to remember his father as wistfully as his does.... This fic, like all my stories, is an attempt to right that imaginative balance, and set the record straight. To do any less, would be a disservice not just to Valentine (who arguably deserves what he gets) but to Jace who loved and loves him._

 

* * *

 

 

for S  
who will regrettably guess, if she ever stumbles upon this

 

 

He was practising when the summons came, sitting at the rosewood piano that dominated the far end of the sunny room they called the Green Room — however much the servants went on punctiliously referring to ‘the Music Room’ — his fingers hurtling down the keyboard in a crashing spray of arpeggios.

The piece was too hard for him. But his father had instructed the music master to let him learn any piece he wanted, so long as he practised diligently. “He won’t hurt himself,” he’d said dryly. “If he doesn’t mind the frustration, I don’t see why you should.”

So the music master had only pursed his lips disapprovingly and let Jace choose what he liked. The arpeggios were rapid and awkward, and his fingers tended to skid onto wrong notes as they flew along the keys, but he loved the feel of it: the reckless speed and the strength, the notes struck like sparks from his fingertips. And the sudden turn near the end, as the music alighted for a moment on a melody of such sweetness that it made him want to shout aloud, or turn handsprings, or cry — except that he was eight, and eight-year-olds didn’t cry.

His fingers lost their way for a moment, cast about hopefully and then petered to a halt. With a sigh, he started again from the beginning, watching the music unreel beneath his hands with a kind of wordless pleasure. His arms and shoulders ached — yesterday’s training session had been a punishing one. But bruises and sore muscles were a part of life he’d learned to ignore long ago.

The tricky passage where he kept getting stuck was coming up again, and he knew he ought to stop and work at it methodically. But he’d spent the past hour and half dutifully taking the music apart into smaller and smaller bits until it was in pieces like a clock with its gears strewn across the table. In the remaining minutes before lunch he just wanted to play: let the music loose to soar like a hawk released into the windswept sky.

The difficult part was almost on him now. From long experience, he knew better than to concentrate on getting it right. Fingers had a will of their own; if you paid them too much attention they got nervous and balked. You had to sneak up on it.

So he thought instead about the harmonies moving below the dancing notes like cloud-shadows on the hills, listened as they drew together, built and tautened — and then, in a flash, the dangerous moment was past and he was in the clear, hands sweeping in a glorious crescendo to the piece’s conclusion.

He sat for a moment, hands still on the keys, as the last faint reverberations died away and his breathing gradually slowed.

A quiet tapping on the door made its way into his consciousness. His first thought, he remembered afterwards, was what excellent luck that it hadn’t come any sooner and spoilt that last magnificent plunge to the finale.

His next was that for all he knew, it had. The thunderous bass notes would have drowned out any other sound — and his father’s servants knew better than to enter a room without permission. Whoever it was could have been standing outside the door knocking for quite a while.

“Come in,” he called out a little guiltily. Though of course he hadn’t been expecting anyone. His father was strict about the hours he spent studying or practising, and he wasn’t supposed to be interrupted.

But his father was away. It might, he thought hopefully, be someone from the kitchens with a picnic lunch he could take down to the river. The kitchen lads wouldn’t care about a quarter of an hour shaved off his piano practice, so long as it went undiscovered.

Of course, his father had an unpleasant way of knowing about things.

He might not be pleased about the unauthorized picnic either.  Once when he was much younger, Jace had coaxed one of the lads into taking him out exploring. He’d come home with a sprained ankle and a deep gash in his arm. Not that he’d minded — the spectacular view from on top of the stable cupola was worth any number of sprained ankles, in his opinion — but his father had made it categorically clear that he was not to spend time with the servants in future. Exactly what his father said or did to the kitchen boy he never found out, but it was months before any of them would so much as catch his eye. His father had had something to say to Jace about it too — he winced reflexively at the memory.

Even if today’s river expedition was strictly solo, he had a feeling a special lunch from the kitchen might count as “fraternizing”. Still, it was beautiful weather, perfect for building a dam in the shallows or practising with his spear on the carp that lurked in the shadows beneath the bridge. No point wasting time now worrying about future retribution.

But wasn’t someone from the kitchen, after all. When Jace looked up, his father’s manservant was standing in the doorway.

Which could only mean one thing: his father was home. His heart gave a little joyful bound. “You’re back,” he exclaimed unnecessarily, scrambling up from the piano bench.

The servant’s impassive face softened fractionally, and he inclined his head. “We rode back this morning, Master Jonathan. Your father accomplished his business more quickly than he’d anticipated.”

He nodded, unsurprised. His father was uncompromisingly punctual where his absences were concerned: if he said he’d be back by Thursday, he was back by Thursday. It often meant allowing more time for his journeys than he turned out to need.

So no picnic by the river. But lunch with his father in the long, panelled dining room, and a chance maybe to hear about his trip. Not that his father generally volunteered much information about where he went or what he did there — and Jace knew better than to ask. But his father had told him a little about this particular errand before he left.

And maybe, just maybe, his father would take him sailing this afternoon. It _was_ a glorious day, with a lively breeze blowing from the south.

He slid back onto the bench to get his last fifteen minutes of practicing done.

But the manservant was still speaking, colourless and deferential.

“Your father would like to see you, Master Jonathan. You’ll find him in his study.”

Jace felt a prickling of unease. His father almost never called him into his study, except to punish him. A swift examination of his conscience yielded no crimes as yet unpaid-for — no serious ones anyway. He glanced over quickly, but the servant’s face gave nothing away.

Closing the piano lid quietly, he followed the manservant out of the room. Whatever this might be about, his father didn’t like to be kept waiting.

The green baize door of his father’s study was shut. Ignoring the unpleasant thumping of his heart and the unwelcome recollection of other times he’d stood here, he raised his hand and knocked.

“Come in, Jonathan.” Odd how a knock could be as recognizable as a footstep or a voice. Through the baize, his father’s own voice was muffled, like the percussion of iron on wood. It was impossible to read its tone.

Squaring his shoulders, he pushed the door open.

His father’s study was elegant, orderly and still. Even the dust motes caught in the slanting sunlight from the tall windows seemed to hang motionless in the air, as though waiting for permission to resume their habitual dance. As always, it was the bookcases that struck you first: heavy, book-lined shelves towering to the ceiling. The library was lined with books too, of course, but the effect there was different — lighter, more open, and at the same time somehow cozy: a place that invited you in, laid out its treasures for you, made you want to clamber up the ladders and pull out random interesting-looking volumes from high-up shelves.

The dark, brooding bookcases in his father’s study kept their secrets to themselves. Maybe it was the depth of the room, and the vast height of the ceiling, vanishing into dimness, but this was a place that spoke of authority and power. It reminded him of his father at his most formidable: like him, a room not to be crossed lightly.

But Jace’s eyes were on the massive desk by the window and the tall figure seated behind it, silhouetted against the bright sky. His father was writing, his face lost in shadow.

“Sit down, Jonathan,” he said without looking up from his paper.

Swallowing, Jace crossed the expanse of carpet and perched obediently on the heavy chair by the desk, watching the lines of neat, balanced characters flow silently from his father’s pen. His father was still dressed for riding, though he’d taken time to remove his greatcoat and wash off the dust of the roads. As usual, the starched points of his collar and the white line of cloth at his cuffs looked inhumanly fresh.

Jace wondered if he was in trouble for something, and if so what it was. But when he risked a glance at his father’s face, he looked preoccupied, not displeased. Letting out his breath, he settled against the carved wood, folding his hands in his lap and trying not to fidget.

Something do with this latest trip maybe, he thought sagely. A Nepalese warlock up in the north country, his father had said, claiming to have information about a cleft between dimensions: some kind of spy-hole into the demonic realms. He wondered whether his father’s enquiries had been successful and if he was planning a trip to the Himalayas, or wherever this dimensional rift was. And if so, whether he’d take him along. A crack between dimensions sounded exciting. He wondered if you could actually see the demon worlds through the rift — and if demons could come pouring out through it.

Suppressing a shiver, he gazed for a moment at his father’s strong, scarred fingers driving the pen across the page and pictured them wrapped around a blazing seraph blade, inky Marks curving to his cuffs and demons surging around him. He couldn’t imagine any demon that could get the better of his father, but it was still a sobering thought.

The flying pen paused, scribbled half a line more and then came to a halt. Laying down his pen, his father sat back and fixed his gaze thoughtfully on him at last.

“I wanted to talk to you, Jonathan. I think it’s time.”

 _Time?_ he thought in confusion. _Time for what?_ His bewilderment must have shown on his face, because his father held up a hand, forestalling him.

“You turn nine this month, Jonathan. At Easter, you killed a demon single-handed. You’ve trained in every manner of combat imaginable — bow and rapier, dagger and spear, slingshot and stiletto. You’ve learnt to master cold, thirst and hunger, to bear fatigue and pain. You know how to kill a man.”

Jace shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Something in the seriousness of his father’s voice sent a trickle of apprehension down his spine. He could feel the weight of his black gaze resting on him, heavy as iron.

“I imagine you haven’t given much thought to this, Jonathan, but you’re ready to put your skills into practice. To begin hunting demons.” He rose as he spoke, and his broad shoulders seemed to tower against the window, blotting out the light. “It’s time that you were Marked.”

Jace stared. For an instant, astonishment swept aside every other feeling. “But I thought Shadowhunter children didn’t get Marked until they were twelve,” he stammered. “When they go away to school.” Whatever he’d expected his father to say, it wasn’t this.

“Most Shadowhunter children don’t.” Something flickered in his father’s eyes for an instant and was gone.

“But you’re not like most Shadowhunter children, Jonathan.” He frowned slightly. “Though I suppose you couldn’t know that.” He had picked up the chased silver letter-knife from his desk, and was balancing it lightly between his long fingers, his gaze on the narrow blade as he spoke.

Now he looked up, and his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile. “Trust me, Jonathan, there isn’t a twelve-year-old in Idris to rival you in skill or in training.” Beneath the tranquil certainty, a trace of satisfaction was audible in his level voice.

Jace supposed it was possible — his father certainly made him train hard enough. It hadn’t really occurred to him that other children might not be as well-schooled as he was. He realized he had a very vague notion of what it would be like to grow up in the crowded precincts of the Glass City, without the space and seclusion — the mews and stables, the training room and armoury, the fields and woods, lakes and rivers — he took for granted. He could see he had advantages, growing up here on the manor with his father, which other children didn’t have.

But ready to be Marked? He struggled to collect his thoughts and remember what he knew about a Shadowhunter’s first Marks. His recollection was hazy. The whole thing had always belonged to a far-off future, too remote to give much thought to.

He knew the runes, of course, the permanent Marks every Shadowhunter bore. His father made him spend hours at the long table in the library studying from the Grey Book until his head ached and runes danced in bright afterimages behind his closed eyelids. There wasn’t a basic Mark by now he couldn’t recognize and reproduce from memory.

He knew too that this was part of growing up. You didn’t draw runes on young children — apart from _iratzes,_ the healing runes that did their work and disappeared without a trace — any more than you did on Downworlders or mundanes. The runes were too powerful. Getting Marked was something that happened when you were old enough: at school usually — at least if you grew up in Idris and could go away to school in Alicante. He knew there were Shadowhunter children — not many — whose parents chose to raise them out in the mundane world: his father’s old _parabatai,_ for instance. He wondered if there were any schools for them or if they were taught at home. Perhaps there weren’t any hard and fast rules about when they were Marked.

Gripping his elbows with his hands, he stared out the window at the sunlit lawns rolling down to the river and thought about whether he felt grown up. He remembered the Glabrous demon he’d fought off in King’s College Chapel: the thick, evil sound of its chittering, refracted into a dozen whispers by the echoing stone, the greedy anticipation in its eye as it clambered towards him, the slithery weight descending on his chest as it sprang. He could remember wondering in the instant between drawing his dagger and seeing it launch itself at him, why he hadn’t called out for help. Maybe he _was_ growing up.

His father seemed to think so, anyway. He wished he knew more about what happened when you were Marked for the first time — and then thought maybe he didn’t. He wanted to ask his father: _when?_

The minute he framed the question, the answer came to him with a little thrill. He swallowed.

“You mean right now, don’t you?” It was an effort, but he made the words come out quiet and steady.

“Obviously.” His father’s voice was edged with impatience. “Why else would we be having this conversation?”

 _Obviously_. He flushed and wished he could take back the question. He wished his breath weren’t suddenly so short in his chest. He wished he were sitting at the long mahogany dining table, helping himself to roast beef and potatoes and listening to his father talk about Milton, or the heroic exploits of the great crusading Shadowhunters, or, well, anything really.

His father’s gaze travelled over him and his brows drew together in a frown.

“Jonathan,” he said more sharply. “Do you suppose I would do this if I didn’t think you were ready? To fight demons, you need Marks to strengthen and protect you. What happened at Easter was unexpected, but in hindsight I see that the risk was always there. You could easily have been killed.” His eyes were fixed on something beyond the window Jace couldn’t see, his fingers gripped hard on the window frame. “Very easily,” he repeated half to himself.

When he turned, the expression on his face was unexpectedly grim. “I want you properly armed the next time you meet a demon, Jonathan. And travelling with me, you _will_ encounter demons again.

“The Marks a Shadowhunter bears are the strongest armour he possesses. Nature has endowed demons with weapons and defences we can’t begin to match, hideous powers beyond your imagining. All we have are the Angel’s Marks on our bodies,: for speed and strength and agility, to heal us and help us bear pain.” The quiet passion in his voice surprised Jace.

And it was true. It had been a _very_ near thing when he’d tackled the demon in King’s Chapel, nearer than he liked to remember. Strengthening runes would have helped a lot.

So he looked at his father steadily and said “Yes, Father, I can see that.”

His father gazed back at him for a moment measuringly, and then he nodded as though satisfied with what he saw. “Good.” A brief smile lit his austere, fine-boned face, like sun in winter. For an instant Jace was five again, poised at the end of the dock for his first dive into the icy waters of the lake, his father strong and tall and assured beside him like the Angel in the illustrations.

But these were deeper waters than any he’d swum in. In spite of himself, he felt his heart accelerate, his palms damp against the carved wood of his chair. He drew a long steadying breath, pushing the fear back the way he’d been taught, and wondered if his father had noticed.

But when he looked up, his father’s face was shuttered, his gaze flat and unreadable. Jace looked away. After the bright sunlight outside the window, the room seemed dim and still. The mahogany surface of the desk shone like a dark mirror; he could see his father’s reflection glimmering fathoms deep in the polished wood. Over the hammer strokes of his heart he heard his father’s voice saying something, cool and remote.

Then he was standing over him, stele in his hand. “Your left hand I think, Jonathan.”

It was going to hurt. His father’s eyes and voice told him that. He felt his muscles harden as he braced himself, hands gripped tight on the arms of the chair. His father’s cool fingers circled his wrist like bands of iron.

_“In the name of the Angel, by whom we have been charged with the safety of this mortal world—”_

He took a deep breath, concentrating on his father’s voice.

_“—I Mark you now a Shadowhunter, Jonathan — now and always.”_

The words hung in the air like ripples spreading across the dark surface of the lake. He knew he ought to look away, but a kind of horrified fascination held him transfixed as his father bent and brought the glowing tip of the stele down against his skin.

The pain was shocking. He gave a little gasp, his fingers cramped hard against the polished wood, and felt his father’s fingers tighten ruthlessly around his wrist. Smoke curled lazily towards the ceiling as the stele traced its agonizing path across his hand.

 _“_ Close your eyes, Jonathan.” His father’s voice cut smoothly across the rising dazzlement of pain. “Pain is only what you allow it to be.”

Shutting his eyes valiantly, he tried to find a place beyond the pain, make it a thing apart. He was Nephilim: you didn’t think about how much something hurt.

But his hand was twisting and contorting into impossible shapes, as though recoiling from the stele of its own will. He heard a bone splinter and then another, and a white blaze of agony engulfed his hand. He doubled over, choking.

He was dimly aware of his father pulling him into his arms and the sound of someone screaming, and then he was falling down into an abyss of blinding agony that seemed to go on and on without end. Until at last, quite suddenly, he reached the blackness at the bottom.

 

*

 

Looking back later he couldn’t recall an actual moment of awakening, only a slow upwelling of consciousness bearing him gradually back to awareness: a timeless interval which seemed to reach as far back as he could remember. He had a hazy sense of a time even further beyond that, and a long ascent out of excruciating darkness. Demons, he thought vaguely: down in the black depths where he’d been. That couldn’t be right, but it was hard to think through the pounding ache in his head.

He seemed to be lying on his side, his head pillowed on something soft. His whole body felt stiff and aching as though he’d been lying on cold stone, but when he shifted a fraction, experimentally, it was clear that whatever lay beneath him was more yielding than that. Why couldn’t he remember where he was? His left hand throbbed with a smothered sort of pain, as though muffled under thick blankets.

With an effort, he dragged his eyelids open. Dimness surrounded him, punctuated by mellow pools of lamplight. He was on a sofa, it seemed, its brown leather rosy in the glow of the lamps. With a stab of bewilderment he recognized the long Chesterfield in his father’s study. Beyond the tall windows, the sky was a deep cobalt blue, the trees inky shadows against the dusk.

He struggled into a sitting position, and was rewarded by a wave of dizziness that nearly sent him toppling back into darkness.

“Easy, Jonathan.”

His father was sitting in a pool of lamplight beyond the sofa, a book open on his knee. His face was impossible to read in the uneven light.

Memory returned abruptly as a falcon stooping from the sky, and transfixed him with its talons. He drew a sharp breath, his eyes flying involuntarily to his hand, but it was invisible under layers of white linen.

“I reset the bones and splinted it for now.” His father’s voice was unemphatic. “There’s a light _iratze_ on it, but it will take a few days to mend — I didn’t think a powerful healing rune was the best idea at the moment. The wrappings are for the poultice; they can come off in the morning.”

He nodded, eyes on the floor. A sick feeling was seeping through him, his lungs suddenly tight as if there weren’t enough air in the room. Beneath the linen bands, his hand burned painfully.

He looked up to see his father watching him.

“Jonathan—“ His father hesitated a moment, and then rose. Bending smoothly, he lifted Jace up and sat him on the high sideboard so that his eyes were nearly level with his own. Jace could see his own white face glimmering in their depths.

“Jonathan,” he began again, his voice soft and urgent. “What happened was my fault. _Not yours._ ” The dark eyes burned into his as if they could compel belief by sheer force of will.

“The Marks I chose were far too powerful for a body as young as yours. I was so intent on ensuring you had the protection you need that I failed to think. It was inexcusable stupidity.” Self-reproach twisted bitterly in his voice.

For an instant, his hands rested lightly on Jace’s shoulders, their grip warm and solid on Jace’s chilled flesh. “There’s nothing the matter with your courage, Jonathan.” His voice grated. “Nothing _whatsoever_.”

“I’m proud of you,” he added quietly. “And I’m so very sorry I put you through that.”

Jace felt the cold knot in his middle loosen a little. The sincerity in his father’s voice was unmistakable. He looked down, picking at a loose thread on his knee with his good hand.

“It’s not meant to hurt that much?”

“Not like that.” The beginnings of a smile crinkled the corners of his father’s eyes in the way he loved. “Or to break your bones. Not if I’d done it right. Covenant Marks shouldn’t be anything like that painful.”

Jace was silent a moment.

“It’s not just that I’m too young? To be Marked at all?”

“Days and years are arbitrary counters, Jonathan. What matters is what you’ve done with them.” The low, resonant voice seemed to fill the room, sweeping back the long shadows which hovered beyond the circle of lamplight.

“Your fortitude and resilience, your courage and skill, all those things which go into the making of a Shadowhunter—” He hesitated as if searching for words, his gaze on Jace’s upturned face. Jace waited.

“Well, suffice it to say,” he finished slowly, “they are far beyond your natural years.” His eyes rested on Jace, the shadow of some indecipherable thought in their depths. “Beyond what anyone could ask.” The words were so quiet he might have been talking to himself.

“Believe me, Jonathan,” he went on, stretching out his hand so the lamplight shone full on the curving lines etched blackly across it. “I was no readier the day I received these Marks than you are today.”

Jace gazed at the inky patterns, as achingly familiar as the sound of his own name. He could picture it with his eyes shut: the hand at the bridle of his pony — steadying him as he climbed into the swaying aspens by the barn — flashing beneath a blade up and down the length of the training room — tracing beneath the lines of Latin verse as he parsed. Strange to think it had once been bare and unmarked like his own. But then, he couldn’t really imagine his father as a boy.

“So you hadn’t already fought loads of demons by the time you went to school?” He thought for a moment.

“But you were twelve, right? Did you still need reminding to be patient and not overreach your own strength and match your footwork to your weapon strokes? And get into trouble for things, like climbing the stable weathervane or raiding the apple cellar?

His father threw back his head and laughed. “Eight-year-olds don’t have a monopoly on mischief, Jonathan — though I never climbed that particular weathervane. As for demons, it’s an unlucky child who meets with a demon before he’s been Marked.”

He gazed down at him and smiled: a rare, open, unshadowed smile. “I had a very conventional childhood, Jonathan. Old-fashioned in many respects, I suppose.” His voice was reflective. “My father believed in traditional Shadowhunter ways and insisted on training me in the old arts. But I knew far less of the world and its dangers than you do.” There was a trace of regret in his voice, though whether it was for himself or for Jace it was hard to tell.

He touched Jace’s cheek lightly with his finger. “There’s nothing I could do then that you can’t do, Jonathan — I promise.” The conviction in his voice blazed softly, warm as sunlight spilling across the golden stone of the manor terrace.

Jace looked at him searchingly a moment, and then relaxed. _I promise_ , in his father’s vocabulary, meant exactly that. He lifted his chin.

“Then I want to try again. Now.”

His father scanned his face for a long moment, and then held out his hand.

Jace put his good hand carefully into his father’s. For an instant he gazed at his own small hand cradled in his father’s broad, calloused palm — and then he obediently closed his eyes.

 

*         *         *

 

“And this time _was_ different,” Jace said thoughtfully. “Just as he’d promised.” His eyes were on the wind-tossed East River, but his mind, thought Clary, might have been a million miles away.

“It still hurt _—_ I was very young to be Marked. But no worse than some of the injuries I’d gotten before.”

Clary pictured the small, stalwart figure braced against the pain and felt her nails digging into her palms. With an effort, she unclenched them, twisting round on the narrow park bench to look at Jace.

“So at least the Marks that Valentine used the second time around were the right ones?” She couldn’t quite keep the anger out of her voice. How could anyone make such a terrible mistake and hurt their own child so badly?

“No,” said Jace quietly, “they weren’t. That’s the point. The Marks he’d used in the first place were already the lightest possible ones he could have chosen. I just didn’t know that. The problem wasn’t the Marks, it was me. I was eight years old. Shadowhunter children get Marked for the first time when they’re twelve. Maybe ten, if they’re really exceptional.

“Obviously, I was exceptional _—_ “ for a second, a pleased expression tugged at the corners of his mouth and Clary couldn’t help thinking how long it was since she’d seen that look of effortless superiority on Jace’s face.

“There aren’t many Shadowhunter kids either who’ve had the kind of training he put me through,” he continued. “But I was still much too young, and he knew it.”

“So why did he do it?’ Clary demanded. “Another typical episode of gratuitous cruelty?” Thinking about Jace’s childhood with Valentine still made her hot and miserable, like she wanted to pull him close and smother him in stupid endearments _—_ or hit someone.

When she looked up, Jace’s eyes were dark with some unreadable emotion.

“It wasn’t cruelty, Clary. Arrogance maybe. He did it because he didn’t think there was anything he couldn’t do. Because he didn’t think there was anything _I_ couldn’t do. He did it because he believed in me.” With an abrupt movement, he rose to his feet and stood with his hands on the iron railing by the river, gazing down at the fast-flowing grey water below.

“That’s insane,” Clary burst out. “I mean, how twisted is that? Torturing a child, just to prove you can push them beyond the normal limits of human nature.”

Jace turned and looked at her, a long, measured look. “A bit late for that, don’t you think? He’d made me into something outside human nature before I was even born. But look, you’re missing the point _: he was right._ His belief in himself _—_ in me _—_ was justified.

“The Marks he gave me that second time weren’t any different. _But I was._ Because I trusted him.”

Clary gazed at him wordlessly, her hands twisted together in her lap.

“Don’t you see, Clary? It’s fear that makes the Marks hard to bear, at least partly: fear that makes the body fight against the power of the runes, fear that is literally crippling. That’s why we go through so much specialized training before we’re Marked for the first time. Most of our training is about fighting, obviously _—_ technical stuff _—_ and there are techniques for handling pain; but a lot is to do with fear. It’s one reason why you don’t put Marks on young children. Being afraid is something kids grow out of. To an extent, anyway.”

In her mind’s eye, Clary pictured Jace standing straight-backed in her foyer, laughing in the face of Abbadon, Demon of the Abyss. The blistering courage of it still caught her by the throat. Growing up was the least of it, she thought.

But Jace was speaking again. “He thought I could do it cold, and he was wrong. My body and mind were just too young. I knew how to be brave in the face of my fear, but I couldn’t go one step further and be fearless. An eight-year-old’s courage has its limits.

“But he had absolute faith in me, and that faith made it possible for me to be unafraid. To have faith in myself, to trust that the Marks he gave me would not be more than I could bear.” His head was turned towards the restless grey waves, so he couldn’t see Clary’s own eyes prick with unexpected, unwanted understanding.

“And because I believed it _—_ believed him _—_ it was true.”

 

_Cantab  
May 2012_

  

 


End file.
